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American Public Media.
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The Marketplace Wealth and Poverty Desk explores money and class, where we came from and where our country is going economically, thanks to funding from the Ford Foundation. We want to hear your stories, ideas, and questions to help us create great journalism about the growing concentration of wealth in the United States. We’ll report on the forces and policies that led to the wealth gap. We’ll look at what the consequences are, good or bad, for our families and communities. We’ll be asking you what economic choices our country should make.

117 episodes available.
A new episode about every
41 days
averaging 12 mins duration
.

Cecilia Sirianni's small office at Massabesic High School can sometimes get a bit messy. Piles of donated clothes and boxes of snacks fill cabinets and shelves — all for students at the rural district in York County, Maine. For more than a decade, a big part of Sirianni's job has been to identify kids and families who are homeless and help them ...…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says more than 50 million people across the country live in “food deserts” – low-income communities where it can be hard to find healthy food. According to the last census, in 2010, almost 2 million of those people live in the Houston area alone. New research suggests the problem is persisting in Houston in pa ...…

Many people in Wise County agree that they can’t jail their way out of a drug epidemic, but there’s a lot less agreement on what to do instead. And we find out what happened to Joey Ballard.By American Public Media.

The unemployment rate is near historic lows, the job market is tight, and wages have been rising steadily.But since the Great Recession, wage gains have varied significantly by race, with African Americans’ earnings nearly stagnant over the period, while other groups' median pay has risen between 5 and 10%.According to “usual weekly earnings” d ...…

For the past 30 years, courts in the United States have experimented with different programs designed to keep convicted offenders out of jail — things like drug court or court-ordered community service, where people work off jail sentences. We’re at a moment where these kind of work programs are ballooning in popularity as a potential solution ...…

It’s not easy being an undercover cop in a county of just 40,000 people. But drugs were making it hard for Bucky Culbertson to run his business, so he made it his business to get rid of drugs.By American Public Media.

Historically low rates of interest have helped the U.S. economy recover from the Great Recession. But there have been casualties. Savers — and the wider economy — have lost interest income from deposits and investments that could total $500 billion. This probably hurt those who are retired, or on a fixed income, the most.Click the audio player ...…

When American-born children age out of foster care without identifying documents like birth certificates and state ID cards, their financial futures can be at stake. These young people may have trouble going to college, getting a job, or renting an apartment. In Texas, when kids in foster care turn 16, the law requires they get birth certificat ...…

The drug bust and the trial were a “farce,” but the full force of the law still came down on Keith Jackson — and thousands of people like him. That didn’t end the crack epidemic, so what did?By American Public Media.

Opioid overdoses are killing about 50,000 Americans a year, more than car accidents and guns. Marketplace's documentary podcast, The Uncertain Hour, is digging into drug epidemics in its latest season: why people buy and sell drugs, how law enforcement tries to stop them and how an epidemic eventually ends. Reporter and producer Caitlin Esch sp ...…

It was the perfect political prop: drugs seized by government agents right across the street from the White House, just in time for a big presidential address. The reality was more complicated.By American Public Media.

According to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin — which ranks the health of nearly every county in the U.S. — more than 10 percent of households live with the burden of extremely high housing costs. Where people spend more than half of their income on housing, it is more difficult to live better ...…

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reports more than 76,000 people came over the southern border last month without documents. That’s more than double from the same time last year. A look at how the budget for border security isn't meeting the realities on the ground.Click the audio player above to hear the full story.…

Nearly one-third of food prepared by restaurants and grocery stores winds up as waste, according to data cited by the Environmental Protection Agency. It can be awkward and costly for restaurants to coordinate transport of their surplus food to shelters or food banks, but food delivery companies like Postmates and DoorDash have started offering ...…

Californians' rejection of a rent control measure in November 2018 has prompted some politicians in Sacramento to talk about getting an anti-rent gouging cap on the books. The idea is similar to a current law that bars the state's businesses from raising the price on goods and services beyond 10 percent during natural disasters.…

A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that a quarter of Americans living in poverty don’t receive public assistance such as food stamps, subsidized housing, child care or cash benefits.Click the audio player above to hear the full story.By American Public Media.

Update: This story originally published on Jan. 28. It has been updated to include emailed responses.Tax filing season got underway this week. And it's a big one, because we just finished the first full tax year since Congress passed the tax reform law of 2017. That law, and the changes that came out of it, could make a big difference in the si ...…

Most nights for Chardae Smith, a 33-year-old single mom in Pittsburgh, start with dropping off her baby at ABK Learning and Development Center around 10:30 p.m. to make it to work by 11.Smith does overnight home health care for people with disabilities. It was easy getting the job — but finding safe, affordable care for her son? She said that w ...…

Recent devastating wildfires burned down more than 300 homes in Malibu, California — one of the wealthiest cities in California. Many homeowners there employed gardeners and housekeepers who lost their jobs.Oscar Mondragόn, the director of the Malibu Community Labor Exchange, where day workers find work, says it’s too early to tell how many wor ...…

With a resume that includes a Harvard MBA, a position at the World Bank and a stint as an entrepreneur, Elizabeth White didn't expect to be unprepared for retirement. She also didn't expect to find so many people in her same position: broke, underemployed and part of America's retirement crisis. Her new book is called "55, Underemployed, and Fa ...…

A high-rise for seniors isn't where Kathy Stevens, 67, expected to live at this point in her life. Her place has a small kitchen and living area and an accordion door she can pull to close off the space where her bed stands. She pays $840 a month in rent, which includes utilities and a daily dinner. She says the apartment is fine. But after get ...…

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have reached a bipartisan agreement on a nearly $900 billion bill. To get there, House Republicans backed off demands to increase work requirements for people receiving food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The bill could come up for a vote this week.…

This August will present a milestone: 20 years since welfare reform. The federal government overhauled the cash assistance program for poor families, replacing it with a new system called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.Among the biggest changes, states now control their welfare spending out of a set amount received from the fe ...…

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